2015 Recipients

The AIA Small Project Practitioners (SPP) Knowledge Community presents the eleventh annual Small Project Award Program to recognize the work of small project practitioners and to promote excellence in small project design. This Award Program strives to raise public awareness of the value and design excellence that architects bring to all project types, including renovations and additions, no matter the limits of size and budget.

AIA SPP Small Project Design Competition: The Pop-up Project

*A SAFE PLACE*
The AIA Small Project Practitioners invited architects and architecture students to submit design ideas to the 2015 SPP Small Project Design Competition – POP-UP 2015. In this unique design competition, submitters were asked to design a discreet, compact and efficient shelter for the homeless.

This year's award recipient will build and then assemble the winning design in Atlanta where it will be displayed at the convention center, or nearby, during the 2015 AIA National Convention in Atlanta, GA – May 14-16, 2015.

Competition Award Recipient: Rolling Shelter

The concept pivots around the recycling of the proverbial shopping cart as
core component, structure and transport, piggybacked by a matching pair
of saddlebags - storage on one side, shelter on the other. The “shelter”
package is a foldout assembly of hinged panels that deploy to conform
varying instances of shelter.

Honorable Mention: Bankhead Box-Up

An elevated box provides a person the dignity of presiding over their site and an additional sense of security, rather than resting at or near the ground level. The space beneath provides weather protection for a bicycle or other items.

Honorable Mention: Sheltering Chicago

This shelter is intended to provide basic protection for one person. It will help keep them alive in extreme weather, providing a safe and secure temporary home in which to sleep and store a few personal belongings. It is simple, modular, and easy to build.

2015 AIA SPP Small Project Design Competition Jury

This year's Jury was made up of seven (7) members:

Kwanza Hall
Atlanta City Councilman

Nick Hess
The Mad Housers

William Carpenter, FAIA
Lightroom

Bart Shaw
Shaw Architects
(Winner of the 2014 SPP Pop-Up)

Joe A.
The Mad Housers Client

Willie Brown
The Mad Housers Client

Doug Hannah
YAF Representative

About the Competition:

Homelessness is an issue across this country. Walk through any city, look down the alleys, around the hidden corners and into the dark recessed doorways and you will find people struggling to survive, simply needing a roof over their heads for the night. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure and adequate housing, or lack of fixed regular, and adequate nighttime residence.

According to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs 2009 Report on Homelessness, 21,000 people are homeless on any given night in the state of Georgia. More than half are unsheltered and veterans make up 12% of that population.

Because homelessness is an extreme consequence of poverty, its solutions must include affordable housing, along with employment or mainstream benefits sufficient to maintain housing stability. When disabilities put people at risk for continued or recurring homelessness, outreach and services play a crucial part in getting them into housing and helping them stay there. For many individuals, homeless prevention is an incremental process. Safety and stability are key elements in establishing and maintaining a path towards the rebuilding of an independent and self-supporting life.

Design Problem:

Architecture is at its core, the design and creation of shelter. A simple safe and secure place to sleep and keep belongings is critical to anyone forced to live on the streets. The goal is to design a safe place for someone to take the first step toward getting things back in order and on a path to the life they want to lead.

Design Parameters:

Competition participants can select any of the three design problems listed below (A, B or C), or more than one if they are so inclined. Each proposal will be considered a separate entry.